Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Eastern States 20 Miler

Last weekend my buddies Jeff and Pat convinced me to run the "Eastern States 20 Mile Run," which goes from the Maine/New Hampshire border to the NH/Mass border. It was a beautiful course, all along the ocean, and there was still plenty of snow on the ground. Unfortunately, I have run a handful of times in the last month and can not claim any significant level of fitness. Like an idiot, I went out strong and kept it up for about half the race, after which point all manner of people began to pass me - old ladies, geesers with walkers, infants, you get the picture. Jeff and Pat both had good races (Jeff bettered his half-marathon time and Pat ran 7 miles more than he has before!). We celebrated with fried seafood, beer, and cheesburgers at a local lobster shack. Three days later, I can still barely walk, but we're already looking for the next race...






Pre-race













Shaka finish!














Done!















I feel great!














Hungry....










The reward!

St Patricks Day

My buddies Madhu and Bryan came out to Boston for St Patrick's Day, which was awesome! I think the energy/excitement of the weekend is pretty well displayed in our expressions below. We kicked things off with a Sam Adams brewery tour, did an unintentional walking tour of the bars of Roxbury/Jamaica Plain, went out by Faneuil Hall, and of course hit up the parade in Southie. The highlight of the weekend was seeing the Dropkick Murphys at the Paradise Club. I had to jump on a plane the next morning, so Madhu and Bryan saw me off with drinks in Harvard Square. The party continued in my absence and looks like they saw some good cultural stuff that I was too lazy to take them to. In the spirit of reciprocation, I imposed on Madhu/Bryan the next week in SF.









Monday, March 31, 2008

Tahoe and Lapland Lake

We've had a couple of really fun winter weekends recently, but been too busy to post them!

At the end of February Nikki came out to California when I was out for work and we drove up to Tahoe for the weekend to meet up with my family. We got super lucky and got TONS of snow. So much, in fact, that we almost didn't make it back to the airport in time. The only picture I could find from the trip was the blurry one of Darcy and Dad in the bar afterwards, but I'd say this pretty well captures the flavor of the trip!


In early March Nikki and I hopped in the car and drove to Lapland Lake, which is in the very northern part of New York state, and met mom, dad, Darcy, Jesse, Aunt Bayla, and my cousin Christian for some cross-country skiing. We had an awesome time and Aunt Bayla brought enough food/drinks to keep us happy for months! We skied, snowshoed, went sledding and generally had a great time. We even had a late night ski session out to the lake during which I fell on my butt at least 54 times. The kids all took off for a long snowshoe one day and the best part was having mom and dad at the door with cold beers after! Check out the snow creature of the woods that we encountered in the video below!











Monday, February 18, 2008

Birthday Weekend in Stowe, VT

Nikki's Birthday is Feb 19, so we went up to Stowe Vermont for President's day weekend for some winter wonderland action to celebrate. We had originally planned to have a big group of friends up there, but mobilizing everyone proved more difficult than we anticipated. We had a blast anyway and definitely packed in a ton of fun.

We stayed in a nice little B&B called the Brass Lantern, where we had a fireplace, a super delicious breakfast, a hottub, and baked goods and tea in the afternoon! After driving up Friday, we got up Sat morning for dogsledding with a company called "Peace Pups" on some beautiful land preserved by a local land trust. The ride was great and the owner even had a teepee with hot drinks afterwards. Of course, we hadn't had enough, so we borrowed some snowshoes and went back out for a couple hours of hiking in the woods thru 8 inches of fresh powder. We got back to the B&B and I had time for a couple miles of cross country skiing from our back porch, while Nikki warmed up by the fire.

Our second day was dedicated to some snowboarding and the snow/mountain were great, though it was pretty crowded. Nikki and I still had fun and found some areas that weren't too mobbed. The mountain is huge compared to the little hills we've been skiing in Mass, so we'll have to go back up again. Afterwards, we retired to a nice little cantina for margaritas, chips/guacamol, and some heated games of connect-four.

Today we had some time to do some snowmobiling before making the 3hr drive back home. It was predicted to rain (but didn't) so Nikki and I got a great private tour. We got so see some beautiful backcountry and Nikki really put the pedal to the metal on a couple of straightaways.

Enjoy the pics!


















Monday, January 14, 2008

Return to San Miguel de Allende

After Mexico City, we flew to Leon and then drove to San Miguel de Allende, a colonial town and haven for artists. We spent a week exploring the galleries with Evan's family and then Evan and I stayed for another week to attend a language school.